How We Can Make Our Love and Literacy Program Better

35 years ago our parents began a dream vacation together. The opportunity to cruise the Hawaiian islands with other romance novelists was a dream come true for my mother. According to my dad she was bouncing off the walls weeks before the trip, and had her head buried in her notebook the first couple days of the cruise. As we all know things didn’t go as planned.

Tough decisions were made that day, and they had to be made fast. As the world crumbled around them, our parents and the surviving crew decided to keep cruising, and try to ignore what was happening outside the ship. That lasted for a while, but reality eventually started to beat out romance. My mom said that civility and the midnight buffet were among the first casualties. They put off the inevitable for almost 6 months, but then the fuel ran out and so did the dream.

They were a resilient lot however, and soon their talents as wordsmiths was put to use. Fate and circumstance had left them the greatest collection of living authors in the world. Their love of language was apparent to the survivors on the island, and soon they had made agreements with many different factions. Slowly, they courted the various Kānaka groups until a lasting bond through literature was formed, and at night they would go up the hill and teach the Thrivers reading and romance.

With my mom at the helm, the “Love, Life, and Literacy” program was born to our very excited parents. They raised it to be the most comprehensive post-apocalypse college of arts and letters available (as far we know). Their love affair with words turned their fantasy to reality, and they passed it on to us. It is our job to keep the school and relationships on the island fresh and exciting. For the most part, I think we’ve done a good job. Nonetheless, there have been a few indiscretions that I feel need to be addressed honestly and out in the open.

There has always been talk of expanding the curriculum to cover topics other than literature and the human condition. Science and math have always been the most popular suggestions, but recently history has been batted around, (because of the “doomed to repeat it” trope I suppose).
To all those who are pushing for expanded classes I have only one thing to say, NO!

Pursuing science and math is what got us here. Love didn’t poison the land and water. Romance didn’t cause the collapse of civilization. Billions of lives weren’t lost because of an excess of tenderness. It was an overzealous need to understand the world before we truly understood ourselves that was almost our downfall. When my mother first began this journey you couldn’t even trade a well-crafted romance novel for a salted fish. You can get a good meal in some places for a mediocre poem now. That is the kind of progress that we need to focus on.

Speaking of focus it has come to my attention that many of you have been selling books personally, and not in conjunction with our store. I know that the practice has been going on for a long time and I generally turn a blind eye. Two recent events make that practice impossible now. First, according to our inventory fantasy and thriller novels are outselling romance by almost 3:1. That is unacceptable. Catering to the Kānaka’s baser instincts with tales of violence and explosions instead of cultivating more mature emotions goes against everything we are working for. No more selling tales of swords and sorcerers on the side. Don’t make me go medieval on you! Second, and most disturbing it has come to my attention that someone who shall remain nameless has been passing off two classics as his own. Plagiarism is a vile practice and the next time I ask a student who wrote “Treasure Island” I better hear Robert Louis Stevenson.

Lastly, we come to what might be the most troubling issue facing us. It is important that the education we provide is of a quality that we can be proud of, and that means standards. From the very beginning my mother’s seminal work, “Aloha! Mark Aloha! Love” has been the cornerstone of our curriculum. According to our syllabus it is the novel that our capstone class, “Understanding Love” is based on. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Alexis Green was trying to use her mother’s novel, “Love Lahaina Style” to teach the class. With its run-on sentences and sloppy metaphors it’s no wonder that it’s left some students tired and confused. LLS is a perfectly reasonable starter book for our remedial classes, but falls flat when compared to the symphony of seduction that is “Aloha! Mark”. Let’s respect the high bar we’ve set for ourselves and the education we provide. We owe it to our parents and our students.

Veilcorp Begins Massive Urchin Restoration Project

For hundreds of years the Hawaiian islands have had a problem with invasive species. From the introduction of rats and feral pigs, to more recent invaders like the brown tree snake and coconut rhinoceros beetle, all have had a major impact on island ecology. Invasive species aren’t just confined to terrestrial areas either. For decades the waters around Hawaii have been plagued with invasive algae that crowds out native sea plants and smothers coral, leading to massive reef destruction. Many different plans have tried to deal with the issue over the years, but a new Veilcorp project aims to solve it once and for all while offering a new hope for another species.

Kappaphycus and Eucheuma algae were brought to the islands by farmers working for the carrageenan industry, a chemical important in the making of a wide variety of products including food additives, lubricants, and cosmetics. The accidental release of the algae threatened numerous native plants, and miles of coral reefs popular for snorkeling. In 2005, NOAA worked with the State of Hawaii and the Nature Conservancy to fund and create a possible solution called the Super Sucker project. Divers would use a large suction hose to help them clean the reefs of the algae. The device was faster than doing it by hand, but it was still a painstaking process.

Eventually the State of Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources began to grow and release native sea urchins around areas most endangered by the algae. Since even the smallest piece of algae left could quickly regrow, It was hoped that the urchins could clean the reefs better than divers. The project had mixed results for a number of reasons, but Veilcorp scientists says they’ve worked out the kinks and have a new urchin plan backed by federal authorities.

According to Veilcorp, the problem with the old project was one of numbers. The state run project would raise urchins in the lab from larva to maturity, a process that would take an urchin 4-5 months to grow. Working in conjunction with NOAA biologists, the company says that they have created a hybrid that can mature in half the time. In addition, Veilcorp officials say that the old program would release urchins in numbers that could clear only small areas. They plan on increasing those numbers in a very large way.

“The old state run program was well intentioned but shackled from the beginning,” says spokesperson Lisa Hunt. “They were releasing hundreds or thousands at a time which was fine if you wanted to clean a certain area for a few weeks. We want to solve the problem forever, and restore the urchin population to their original pre-colonial numbers. The urchin is an important food source for many animals such as lobster and octopus, not to mention people. We plan on releasing millions by years end. We hope the people of Hawaii will receive our gift of better fishing, clean reefs, and uni on every table with the spirit it was given” adds Hunt.

That spirit is not so benevolent according to some however. Mayor of the County of Maui Albert Cravalho says the project is payback for a recent suit filed against the company after a failed rail project.

“Veilcorp pulled out of our inter island rail project after 4 years of planning because it was no longer convenient for them. They left us holding the bag so we had no choice but to seek relief in the courts. I find it laughable that this new project was announced 3 months to the day that we filed our suit. Just look where they plan to release the urchins. It’s places that many local businesses use for beach activities. I assure you that tourists aren’t going to want to spend half their day pulling spines out of their feet. One of the locations is miles away from any reef. Their motivations couldn’t be any clearer! The numbers they plan on dumping are ridiculous too. I haven’t been able to find any biologist not on the Veilcorp payroll who thinks that these waters would be better off with the addition of millions of urchins.”

Veilcorp officials say that the locations picked for the urchin release were chosen with such considerations as currents and underwater obstacles to ensure “a rapid and even distribution of urchins to cover all problem areas.” They deny the claims made by opponents and say that the population numbers they are using are based on historic records from early settlers.

“We have early accounts that claim certain bays were filled with urchins as far as the eye could see. We have spent years taking hits from environmentalists about supposed damages that we have caused in the areas around our facilities. Now, after we try and restore an area to its natural state we are accused of some sort of Machiavellian plot involving federal authorities and sea life. We are only concerned about making a place better than it was when we found it, not trivial lawsuits. Mayor Cravalho may think our project and the restoration of a species is laughable, but we don’t. We find our opponents constant attacks disheartening. It’s too bad they care more about preserving a tourist’s right to drunkenly run into the surf than protecting the pristine natural areas around the island and the health of the coral.”

says Hunt.